I am delighted to be able to present you with the head of an American doctor, who has been struck off after the complementary therapies he was peddling turned out to be not just ineffective but downright dangerous.

Dr James E Johnson MD – because Americans always manage to make doctors sound like soap stars – has had his licence revoked after a string of increasingly bizarre and dangerous attempts to cure what he believed was a yeast infection. He started with garlic but his patient was in a hurry and so he decided to speed things along by administering hydrogen peroxide, a popular pseudoscientific therapy.

On this occasion the hydrogen peroxide was given intravenously, through a peripherally-inserted central catheter into a vein in her arm, travelled all the way up through her armpit and on into her chest where it sat snugly next to her heart. After a few “treatments” her arm became red and painful, and she became dizzy with a headache. Johnson diagnosed a “mini-stroke” and, like a good complementary therapist, initiated intramusucular vitamin C injections. The injection site for these became red and inflamed but instead of using antibiotics which, he told his patient, were “incompatible” with hydgrogen peroxide, he prescribed charcoal poultice compresses. With painful inevitability, things deteriorated further.

By the time his credulous patient managed to dredge up the reserves of self confidence necessary to rethink her values and approach a conventional doctor, an ultrasound scan revealed that she had developed an abscess the size of a baseball, which was surgically removed in hospital, after which she mercifully recovered.

For decades, optimistic alternative therapists have been claiming that hydrogen peroxide therapy can treat cancer and various infections (latterly including Aids), as well as improving tissue oxygenation: a quick hunt around the alternative therapy section of any bookshop, or the internet, will produce entertaining examples. The fundamental misunderstandings seem to be, as far as it is possible to untangle these things, that H2O2 is water with a bit of extra oxygen, that this can be used by cells as normal oxygen, or as some form of special oxygen inhibit enzymes in tumour cells, or produce “glyoxylide” which has alleged healing properties but has never been isolated. It can be jolly dangerous, and several pseudioscientists have been successfully disciplined for lying about it ever since Dr Koch, its inventor, was first censured by the FDA in 1942.

Â· The orgy of pseudoscience continues unabated. Paul Nagle writes in to tell us about www.finewaters.com, “for water connoisseurs and their accompanying lifestyle”. It’s an epic work that includes reviews of over 250 different types of water, and instructions on how to do a tasting: “Is it dry?” (no). “Is it moist?” (yes). Best of all is the page of interesting facts about water, where you can read that the sky is blue because it is reflecting the oceans below it. Those of you who really want to know why the sky is blue (blue light gets scattered by our atmosphere more than the other wavelengths from the sun) can go to www.why-is-the-sky-blue.org (honestly).

Â· My favourite water (and Cameron Diaz’s too) is Penta H< ->2O. It’s only Â£1.50 for a 500ml bottle, and according to their marketing director David Cheatham, Penta is “the only molecularly restructured water on the market,” containing smaller clusters of water molecules than other bottled waters. “Since our cells hydrate only one molecule at a time, if you start with smaller cluster water you’re going to get both more and faster hydration to the cell.” But there’s more. Penta contains no minerals, because “research shows human beings don’t absorb minerals through water.” Despite the fact that your gut is full of it, presumably. Dr Wendy Doyle of the British Dietetic Association says: “I’m not aware that we have any problem with the absorption of water.” Professor Bob Williams, emeritus Royal Society research professor in inorganic biological chemistry, goes further: “It’s high grade waffle.”

Â· Now I know that I have an unhealthy obsession with MMR, but I have my reasons: this week the Economic and Social Research Council published a survey showing that more than half of the public still believe that medical science is evenly divided about the safety of the MMR vaccine. We’re not. Again (sighs wearily): MMR has reduced congenital rubella syndrome by 91%, and rubella terminations by 99%, and there is a study of 500,000 children showing it is not harmful. Enough.

Â· A reader reminds me of the classic tale of Nathan Zohner, a teenager from Eagle Rock Junior High in Idaho Falls, Idaho. He, the story goes, interviewed 50 people about their opinions on stricter control of the dangerous chemical “dihydrogen monoxide”. And he had plenty of good reasons: it can cause excessive sweating or vomiting; it is a major component in acid rain; it can cause severe burns in its gaseous state; accidental inhalation can kill you; it contributes to erosion; it decreases the effectiveness of car brakes; and it has been found in the tumours of terminal cancer patients. After all that, it’s no wonder 43 out of 50 people supported a ban of the chemical, and good luck to them: dihydrogen monoxide, or H2O, is more commonly known as water.

Â· Tim Blackwell writes in to tell us about EnergeticMatrix, who have taken new age moron-fleecing to new heights with their e-dispenser programme which “works like an electronic medicine cabinet”, producing irritating flashing fractal patterns and bleepy noises, which frankly gave me a headache. You provide a hair sample or Polaroid picture for analysis on their “electro kinesiological reaction plate”. Somehow “powerful treatments” made up of “medicinal information, color, sound, frequency and geometry” are tailored “to the healing needs of the individual”. They say: “We must recalibrate our notions of what is possible in terms of alternative therapies when using this powerful new instrument.” But then if EnergeticMatrix can get Â£3,500 out of people for it then anything is possible.

Â· Calling all Steves: the National Centre for Science Education in America has concocted an excellent retort to those creationist lists of “scientists who doubt evolution”. After receiving too many emails asking if they could produce a list of scientists who do believe in evolution, they flinched, and decided to honour the late great Stephen Jay Gould by producing one consisting entirely of scientists called Steve. Or Stephan. Or Stephany if you’re a woman. Or Etienne if you’re French. The link is coming very soon…

Â· It was clash of the pop science titans again this week, as newsdesks around the world struggled to interpret a simple American Psychological Association press release. “Personality continues to change after 30,” announced the Washington Post. “Personality traits stick for life,” countered the Australian.

Â· Jim Gobert writes from Australia with the news that Pan Pharmaceuticals, the country’s largest contract manufacturer of alternative medicines, is having to recall what could amount to 70% of all complementary medicines sold Read the rest of this entry »

Â· It’s been a great week for Bad Science spotters. Bob Conklin writes in about Seasilver. Kirlian photography of your aura will demonstrate an “increase in energy” after taking it, and just one capful will deliver “EVERY [sic] vitamin, macro mineral, trace mineral, amino acid, enzyme, and bio-element known to man” straight to your system. As Bob says: “I’m not sure I want every enzyme and bio-element known to man in my mouth.”

Seasilver

Â· Dr Victoria Kaziewicz sends us even more preposterous pseudo-science: “In a book called How to be Beautiful, by Kathleen Baird Murray, you can read that beauty products containing natural ingredients are preferable because naturally occurring substances are irregularly shaped like the substances making up your own body, while manufactured chemicals are perfect spheres.”

“How to stay beautiful” at Amazon

Â· Dr Cicely Marston writes about an even easier way to stay beautiful. A team from Harvard School of Public Health took six years to find that watching television for an extra two hours a day increased the rate of obesity by 25% in 50,000 women. Magnificently obvious – but possibly less obvious is why they were only looking at women.

Â· Picky Bad Science Spotter of the Week Award goes to Jennifer Leech, who has been bothered for decades by an issue in The Lord of the Flies. “In the book it says that Piggy has myopia.” “So,” she continues: “how can the children marooned on that island have used his glasses to start a fire?”

Â· There’s hope on the horizon for the so-called Sars epidemic (versus malaria which kills a million a year, and tuberculosis which kills three million). Richard Spacek sent us a full page ad from Canada’s Saturday National Post from the Dr Rath Health Foundation: “It is a scientific fact that all viruses that have been scientifically investigated can be blocked by specific natural essential nutrients.” The fact that life-saving information “is being withheld from the people of the world is irresponsible and must be stopped immediately”. Never let it be said that I am part of any global conspiracy to suppress this vital information.

Dr Rath health foundation

Â· And finally thank God that in this cynical world, in Wales, Dewi ap Ifan is still managing to feel optimistic: “Aren’t we all lucky that Sars has arisen in China? Traditional Chinese medicine, herbalism, and acupuncture will have it under holistic control in no time _” Keep the Bad Science coming: you are not alone.